Christopher Alexander's series of ground-breaking books including A
Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building have pointed to
fundamental truths of the way we build, revealing what gives life and
beauty and true functionality to our buildings and towns. Now, in The
Nature of Order, Alexander explores the properties of life itself,
highlighting a set of well-defined structures present in all order and
in all life from micro-organisms and mountain ranges to good houses and
vibrant communities.
From a practical point of view, A Vision of a Living World is the most
compelling of the four books. Hundreds of photographs and plans of new
buildings that have living structure, and the processes which gave them
life, demonstrate, for the first time, what the concept of living
structure can mean in buildings of our time and of the future.
The really good building. The really good space. Places that reach an
archetypal level of human experience, reaching across centuries, across
continents, across cultures, across technology, across building
materials and climates. They connect us to ourselves. They connect us to
our feelings. What is more, as we study them, we realize that they all
share a similar geometry. How are they made? The practical task of
making beauty is the principal subject of this volume.
Hundreds of examples of buildings and places are shown. New forms for
large buildings, public spaces, communities, neighborhoods, lead to
discussions about equally important small scale of detail and ornament
and colour. Many of the examples are built by Alexander and his
colleagues; other buildings explored take us around the world and
through time.
With these examples, lay people, architects, builders, artists, and
students are able to make this new framework real for themselves,
understand how it works, and understand its significance. The book is a
feast for the eyes, and mind, and heart. Places created by living
process (Book 2) have living structure (Book 1), and they connect us to
our essence as people (Book 4). The seven hundred pictures of
Alexander's buildings and works of art shown in this book demonstrate in
detail what he means.
Taken as a whole, the four books create a sweeping new conception of the
nature of things which is both objective and structural (hence part of
science) and also personal (in that it shows how and why things have the
power to touch the human heart). A step has been taken, through which
these two domains the domain of geometrical structure and the feeling it
creates kept separate during four centuries of scientific though from
1600 to 2000, have finally been united.
The Nature of Order constitutes the backbone of Building Beauty:
Ecologic Design Construction Process, an initiative aimed at radically
reforming architecture education, with the emphasis of making as a way
to access a transformative vision of the world. The 15 fundamental
properties of life guide our work and have given us much more than a set
of solutions. The Nature of Order has given us the framework in which
we can search and build up our own solutions.
In order to be authentically sustainable, buildings and places have to
be cared for and loved over generations. Beautiful buildings and places
are more likely to be loved, and they become more beautiful, and loved,
through the attention given to them over time. Beauty is therefore, not
a luxury, or an option, it includes and transcends technological
innovation, and is a necessary requirement for a truly sustainable
culture.
